precisely the old star poster that was always helping to defend you against attacks from Ender; but even if you can put a name to that fellow I would appreciate it if you didn't name names.

In the most important ways that matter I am not that fellow anymore. This is because I change my posting emphasis whenever I change my posting name. I am no longer that famous 'C' poster nor that, perhaps even more famous, 'H' poster that he became. Today I am just Gatewood and I am content being one of the best of the 'unknown' posters on these Fray boards, because I do not have to worry about injuring the feelings of my old posting buddies.

You, in fact, are the only one that I have said 'hello' to since I have been back on these Fray boards.

Not wanting to get drawn into the Peyton Place [isn't that a name from the past that will befuddle the kids?] dramedy that is the clique-ridden BOTF board I am mostly remaining in the political frays and I am definitely enjoying toying with lesser posters [a deliberate and somewhat innacurate cheap shot there] because it helps me develop some interesting thoughts that are currently churning in the back of my mind. Besides which, for all of its enticements BOTF has definitely left its glory days behind. Even the handful of posting giants still there -- my former peers -- are now tiresomely derivative and stagnant in their posting offerings. It's more than a bit sad.

It's not that even the best posting on these politics boards are any sort of challenge to me but many of them do make me stop and think and reassess my current mind-set and opinions and that's what interests me at this time. Sometimes I have to remind myself, however, to tone it down. I mean they are not Ender or Schad and of a huge damn certainty nary a one of them are in The-Bells or Fritz's categories as posters. I should not swat flies with an H-bomb.

Recently I have jousted a few times with Doodahman, but I find even that once towering poster much diminished in posting skills and -- again frankly -- in intellectual reach. you know, I do believe that most of his fellow posters don't even know that he was once a famous star poster. One certainly would never know it from his current level of posting skills, and so I guess that is no surprise. But, still, I was shocked by his tremendous fall from what he once was as a posting giant.

So 'H' says hello sweetie, and let's let it go at that, okay?